“Sure they did, but it was a mix of human and canine,” she explained. “They’re writing that off to contaminated evidence at the scene. There’s still plenty of crackpot stories floating around, but the official word coming from the police and Humane Society is that those animals were a breed of large dog suffering from an exotic disease. Once that was released, most of the bigger news affiliates have been focusing on the possibility of an outbreak. Some are even saying that disease got passed from the sick dogs on to us as this Mud Flu thing. They’re wrong about that right?”
Cole nodded. “They can only spread their disease when they’re alive, and it sure as hell isn’t the flu.”
The barrel-chested man swiveled around to ask, “You know that for certain, do ya?”
“That’s what I read.”
“You a doctor?”
“No.”
“My granddaughter caught that damned Mud Flu, so it ain’t no joke.”
When Cole fumbled through a quick apology, the man’s gray eyebrows clumped together to make it clear that Santa had found a new name for his naughty list. Grumbling something about another bunch of know-it-alls, he swiveled back around to scoop up some more of his Salisbury steak.
“So,” Abby whispered. “Do ya really know that for certain?”
“Yes,” Cole assured her. “If Half Breeds could strengthen their numbers through anything as simple as a bite or some sort of airborne disease, there would be a whole lot more of them running around. Have there been any more dog attacks lately?”
Abby shook her head and pecked away at her keyboard. “There have been a few sightings of weird animals digging up backyards in a KC suburb, but that sounds more like people just being nervous. If you want the full details, you should watch our new cable special. It’ll be on next month.”
“I’d be nervous living in KC too,” the bearded man at the counter grunted. “Buncha damn fools runnin’ around lootin’ and givin’ the cops hell while some rabid dogs tear loose.”
“I heard it wasn’t dogs at all,” the woman behind the counter said. “I read somewhere that it was some sort of new tiger that was bred at a private zoo.” Leaning across the counter as if she’d just seen Cole, she asked, “Can I get you something, hon?”
“How’s your chili?”
“Ain’t it too warm for chili?”
Pointing to the metal pot behind her, he replied, “Then it should be too warm for coffee.”
The woman looked back, conceded the point with a shrug and lifted the lid to one of the larger pots next to the coffee machine. “How about some beef stew?”
“Close enough,” Cole said.
It didn’t take long for the stew to be ladled onto a plate over a few slices of white bread, but it was more than enough time for Abby to collect her things and pack them into her satchel.
“So tell me,” she said after Cole’s stew had been placed in front of him. “How’s everything with you and Paige? I heard she was hurt in KC.”
“Her arm’s still in a sling. At least, it was the last time I checked. She had to go back there to wrap up a few things.”
That was the short story.
The long version was that Kansas City had been handed over to the group of shapeshifters that helped rid the city of its werewolf infestation. Mongrels were a long way from human, but they were easier to deal with than Half Breeds, and not as powerful as Full Bloods. Paige was supposed to check in on them to make sure they were settling in and not tearing through anything on two legs. Mongrels seemed to prefer living underground, which was why Cole hadn’t flinched at the story about something digging up a yard or two. As for Paige’s injury, he tried not to think about that. Doing so only made him feel like an ass for tooling around in a rental car while his partner was on the mend. Then again, Paige wouldn’t have responded well to coddling.
Now that her things were packed, Abby sipped some tea and swirled the ice cubes in her glass. “So how was Seattle? Did you get that sweet deal you were after? The one with your new game idea?”
“Yeah, I picked up a royalty check. Caught up with a friend of mine. Got fired.”
Abby froze with the edge of the glass perched on her lip. “Did you say fired?”
Thanks to the echo effect the glass gave to her voice, the F word didn’t seem so bad. “More or less. I’ll still get royalties, though, and Jason will probably throw some freelance work my way.”
Setting down her glass, Abby studied him for a moment and then said, “You don’t sound too broken up about it.”
“You know something? I’m really not. I drove all around Seattle, hitting the old spots…”
“I do that when I go home to Michigan,” Abby told him. “I call it taking the tour.”
“On my way out there, I thought it would be this nice, welcoming thing. Like maybe Seattle would just reach out for me and make me feel at home again.” Cole used his spoon to shove a chunk of potato around to clear a path through his watery gravy and nudged a few peas out of the way. When he bumped against the slab of white bread, he set his fork down. “But I just felt like I didn’t belong there.”
“You don’t. You’ve moved on. Don’t you live in Chicago now?”
“Yeah.”
“And don’t you have a new job?” Lowering her chin and raising her eyebrows, she whispered, “A much more exciting job?”
“It’s not just Seattle. It’s everything. All of it felt like it was just from…before.”
“Before?”
Before he was attacked by a Full Blood. Before he was introduced to Paige Strobel. Before he knew monsters were real. Before “Skinner” was something other than a name in a psychology textbook. But he didn’t want to say all of that in the restaurant, so he settled on, “It’s not part of me anymore.”
Abby scooted even closer, wrapped an arm around Cole’s shoulders and softly told him, “I heard about what you did in KC and read about lots of other stuff you did before that. Everything that’s a part of you now seems pretty great.”
Cole looked over to her and got a quick nod along with a tight-lipped smile. More than anything, he wanted to kiss her. The only thing holding him back was the fact that they were still technically in the early stages of their first real meeting. And before he could think of another excuse of why he shouldn’t do something, he just did it.
Abby’s lips were rigid and hesitant at first, but she quickly leaned into him and relaxed. Just as Cole pulled away, he felt a little breath escape from her mouth. She’d only just closed her eyes, but quickly opened them amid a flutter of naturally long lashes. Before he could get much of a look at those eyes, she pointed them in another direction.
“When you’re done with that, I’ve got some business to take care of,” she quickly announced.
“I wasn’t quite done, but…oh, you mean the food.” Pushing the plate away, Cole said, “I’m done with that.”
“Then take it outside,” Santa grumbled.
When Cole started to fish his wallet from his pocket, Abby stopped him with a hand that lingered a bit longer than necessary upon his wrist. “If you’re willing to help me with my business, then lunch is on MEG.”
“What kind of business are you talking about?”
“You ever hear of a Chupacabra?”
Less than half an hour later Cole was once again in his car. Instead of being led by Romana, he followed the taillights of a cute redhead with thick glasses while holding his cell phone. He poked the newly redesignated second speed-dial button and waited to hear an answer from a contact that had become only slightly less important than his parents.
It took twice the normal amount of rings, but the call was eventually answered.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Paige. I think I might have found a Chupacabra!”
“Are you at a truck stop, Cole? Is this going to be a repeat of the Jackalope incident?”
“No,” he said. “This isn’t about a fake trophy mounted next to a fire hydrant. I’m ta
lking about a real Chupacabra.”
“Just call them Chupes,” Paige said. “That’s how I’ll know when you’re talking about the real ones.”
“You feel like taking a drive up to Minnesota to track one down?”
She let out a strained sigh. “No, Cole. I’m busy.”
“Still in Kansas City with Officer Stanze?”
“No,” she snapped. “That’s done.”
“Done? Why? What happened?”
“It just is. I’m back in Chicago and I don’t feel like going anywhere else.”
“How’s your arm?”
When Paige didn’t answer right away, he knew he’d hit a nerve. A few seconds later she grumbled, “It’s the same as it was. Maybe it’d be better if I cut the fucking thing off.”
“Don’t talk like—”
“You’ve got your MEG girl there with you?”
“I’m following her to the spot where this Chupacabra is supposed to be.”
“Damn it. MEG’s supposed to stay away from the real things and keep chasing their ghosts around. If just one of them gets killed, the rest will be too scared to answer our calls.”
Rather than stick up for Abby, Stu, or the rest of MEG, Cole chalked up Paige’s words to a foul mood and a whole lot of pain from a wound that had been inflicted by one of her own concoctions. “They’ve investigated other things way before we met them,” he reminded her.
“Sure, but crop circles and Bigfoot tracks don’t bite back.” After struggling to open a noisy bag of chips, she asked, “Are you sure this is even a real Chupe lead? MEG jumps at just about everything. But if you’re just trying to get her alone in a field somewhere…”
“She says she’s got a lead. Supposedly, several people from the same area have called in about a strange monster killing pets and other animals. MEG was out here to photograph an apparition in another house when the team decided to check on the pet attacks. Abby says they only found pieces of a few dogs and cats.”
“And you’re sure it’s not a Half Breed?”
“Yeah. All the witness accounts say it’s hairless, runs on two legs, and has hands. The evidence matched bits and pieces from some other Chupe case files, including a few from Rico and my own little triumph in Indiana not too long ago.”
“You flushed out one little heel-biter and chased it for three hours. That’s different than fighting a big one toe-to-toe.” She finally got the chip bag open with a frustrated grunt. When she spoke again, Paige sounded as if she’d jogged a mile since her last sentence. “You’ll find two kinds of Chupacabras in most witness accounts. There’s a two-legged little asshole from a bad movie, and a four-legged one that looks like a dog or some mangy cat.”
“Which is the real one?”
“They’re both the same thing. The younger ones run on all fours, and sometimes the older ones run that way to change their tracks, but they normally walk upright. They can climb. They can bite. They can scratch and they can move.”
“Are they dangerous?”
“Those dogs and cats probably didn’t fall apart on their own.”
“Got any advice?” Cole asked.
“They’re not usually pack animals, but Chupes are fast enough to hit you like a small group, and they’ve made biting and scratching into an art form. I wouldn’t suggest taking one on by yourself, but you’ve already faced a whole lot worse. Abby might drag you down, though. Do you have the shotgun?”
“Yes,” he replied as he reflexively glanced at the bundle wrapped in a dark blanket on the floor behind the passenger seat. The Mossberg Model 535 Tactical still had that new gun smell, since its predecessor had been blown apart thanks to his first attempt at crafting his own shells. His spear was in the bundle as well, putting both weapons within easy reach. “I warned Abby about the danger, but she countered that by quoting half a dozen case numbers where Skinners took MEG members out to get a look at Chupes and a few Bigfoots. Are there seriously Bigfoots? Or is it Bigfeet?”
“They’re just a different breed of Yeti,” Paige said dismissively. “Will it just be you two?”
“The rest of the team moved on to one of the other haunted houses. They aren’t exactly in the loop as far as Skinners go.”
“Fine, I guess,” she said. “She’s read the reports. She knows the risks. Just try to keep her safe, Cole. You might not want to give her a gun. Pepper spray works great on Chupes. Spray it in the eyes, mouth, or ears, and that should do the trick. If you see anything that’s too much for her to handle, get her out of there.”
“What’s too much?”
“We don’t take tour groups anywhere near shapeshifters if we can help it, and we don’t introduce them to Nymar.”
“But MEG already knows about the Nymar,” Cole pointed out.
“From a distance. It may only be a matter of time before a Nymar weasels its way into MEG and tries to mess up the deal we’ve got going, but there’s no reason to speed up the process. On the rating system for supernatural flora and fauna, Chupes rank a rung or two above a rat.”
“Thanks for the advice, Paige. I’ll keep Abby safe. Besides, this will hopefully just be a chance for me to get alone with her for a while.”
“That’s what I thought. Watch your back.”
Tucking his phone into his pocket, he watched Abby’s signal blink before her car turned onto a side road marked by a sign that seemed to have been constructed and placed for the express purpose of being overlooked. The road quickly degenerated into a pair of dirty ruts leading to an old bridge. Loose boards thumped beneath Cole’s tires in a heartbeat pattern for a few seconds before being replaced by the crunch of gravel.
Abby came to a stop in a clear patch just off the road and had her door open before Cole had a chance to park. By the time he fished his weapons from the backseat, she’d already connected her laptop to a power source and was typing away. “I won’t get very good Wi-Fi out here, but I can pull up the files so you can take a look,” she announced.
Cole slipped into a harness that was made to hold his spear on his back, angled to be drawn with a quick reach over his shoulder. Pumping the shotgun for maximum effect, he said, “Just tell me how many there are and where to find ’em.”
She looked at him, pushed some of her hair behind one ear and nodded. “You’re going for the rugged hunter meets serial killer look, huh? Very nice.”
“You said rugged, so I’ll ignore the rest. The shotgun’s for you, if you want it.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. The reports say old-fashioned pepper spray does just fine,” Abby said. “And it’s from one of you, so it must be accurate, right?”
Cole nodded in what he hoped was an assuring manner. “Right. I just thought you might want something heavier.”
“We’re not out to kill it. I just want pictures. Maybe a sample of hair or something like that. You know what would be great? Audio recordings! Do they howl? Any kind of weird noise from a Chupacabra would play well on the website. All we need is something the other paranormal and cryptozoological websites don’t have.”
Looking around at the unpaved road flanked on either side by a dense wooded area, he asked, “So this is where it’s supposed to be?”
“There are a couple houses a few miles from here on a large section of property that all backs onto this area. According to witness reports and some tracks that were found, our Goat Sucker should be in this neck of the woods.” Seeing the perplexed look on Cole’s face, Abby said, “That’s what Chupacabra translates to. Goat Sucker.”
“You’re sure you want to do this?” he asked.
She clipped a nylon belt around her waist. From the stiffness of the pockets and the shininess of the pepper spray cans within them, he wouldn’t have been surprised to find a price tag dangling from the black and green mesh. “This is why I joined MEG in the first place! Throw in a UFO sighting and I may become giddy.”
“All right,” Cole said as he stuck the shotgun along with some supplies into a flexible case. �
�Let’s get moving.”
Chapter 3
The spear strapped to Cole’s back had the dull sheen of a table leg that had been polished after being pulled from a fire. Having whittled the spear from a sapling, he and it had become attached both physically as well as sentimentally. Not only did the weapon have his blood soaked into it right along with the shape-changing mixture, but it had saved his life on more than one occasion. The thorns sprouting from the handle matched the scars on his palms, and the pain they caused when they pierced his skin was as familiar to him as the twinge he got from his bad knee when the weather changed. He didn’t have to apply much of the blood-infused varnish any longer. The Skinner concoction was soaked all the way through, making the wood as light as it was durable.
Cole reached over one shoulder, grabbed the weapon and pulled against the snaps holding it in place. Since there was no immediate threat, his fingers fell into place between the thorns in a loose grip that kept the thorns pressed upon his palm without breaking the skin. Even though Abby was watching, he resisted the urge to do anything fancy before lowering the forked end into the tall grass that grew alongside the trail. He waggled the spear, shaking the grass in quick bursts. “They hate this,” he told her expertly.
“Hate it, or confuse it for the movement of a smaller animal?” Abby asked. “And before you answer, remember I’ve read the reports.”
“If you know so much about it, why don’t you take the lead in this investigation?” he asked with just enough of a smirk to let her know he was only needling her.
Abby bumped him with her hip as she walked by. “Maybe I will. You could always wait in the car. So, is it true you can make your weapons change into other shapes?”
Cole stopped and faced her while keeping the forked end of his weapon in the weeds. They were too far away from I-94 for the sounds of cars to reach their ears, but it wasn’t exactly quiet. Insects buzzed in the trees surrounding the access road that cut south through the woods, their flight paths swerving due to the same wind that rustled dozens of overhead branches. The rattle of Cole’s spear was like one spastic set of drumsticks in an otherwise respectable percussion section.
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